Fire & Rain
by D. Taina
Summary: After the fire in "The Reckoning," Demona finds Thailog, battered, bleeding, seriously wounded, and she will make him pay for what he's done to her in the most horrific of ways. Contains violence and torture. Do not read if you're under eighteen.


**Fire & Rain  
By Demona Taina**

    My vision clears and I can at last focus my eyes on my surroundings. As I gaze at the electrified bars that keep me from escaping, I cannot help but sigh in dismay and close my eyes again, wishing that I could just remain asleep for the rest of what may be left of my miserable existence. I can feel the cold, hard floor beneath me, and I can smell the stench of imprisonment and of my own tears, blood, and misery. I squeeze my eyes shut and my teeth clench as I slowly become aware of the aches in my body. 

    I begin trembling uncontrollably, perhaps by the tears that threaten to consume me, by the cold air circulating in my cell that is slowly penetrating my skin, or perhaps by the drugs that are still in my system. I gaze at the bars, hoping, praying, and pleading that there is no one on the other side, getting ready to experiment on me as they have done for as long as I have been here. My eyes quiver with the surfacing of tears and my body trembles uncontrollably at the thought that maybe… she… is there… 

    A sob escapes me and I wrap my wings tightly around myself, trying to forget the excruciating reality of my life. I cannot escape, I am trapped here, and I am going to die when she sees fit, but not before suffering endlessly and begging her on my knees to please kill me and be done with it, but I will not be granted a rapid death. Tears stream down my sunken cheeks, and I cannot contain the sobs rising within me. 

    I know that I deserve to be punished for the things I have done, as I have slowly come to realize with the inevitable pass of time in this cell. But do I truly deserve a slow death? Do I deserve to be tortured this way? More tears surface, and I cannot help but wonder if this is what I truly deserve, but I refuse to believe it. This cannot be right, as no soul deserves this punishment. No one deserves to live in pain and not be granted the simple joy that is death. Yes, death, how I wish for it, and yet, how I wish for my freedom, for the chance to redeem myself, for the chance to live, and to perhaps be happy with someone that may care about me. 

    I close my eyes as I struggle to seek comfort in the security of my wings. Yes, perhaps someone will come and I may be released. I may be free soon enough and all this will be like some dream; no, a nightmare that refused to cease. I gaze at the bars once more. I know that I have been here for several months. If someone cared, then I would have been released weeks or maybe even days after my capture, but there is still no sign of some mercy. 

    I struggle not to weep as I think about my past. I have lived such a short life, for I am less than three years old, and I wasted that time seeking power, money, death, satisfaction, pleasure, but not love. I have been such a fool… How could I think that all those things would make me happy? I know that no one cares about me; that is why I am still here, and I have no one to blame but myself. I know that if this had happened to Goliath, the one person I used to loathe the most, his clan would have come for him almost instantly because they care. 

    And so, I am still here, dying ever so slowly as my spirit slowly shatters into a thousand fragments. I have become numb to pain, numb to suffering, and numb to the threat of death. How I wish that death would come for me, and yet, how I wish for my salvation. If only I could decide whether to live or die. 

    I close my eyes and lose myself to the very depths of my mind, of my memories, and I think about the first time that I met Goliath. I was looking forward to see him, as I thought that maybe I could care about someone, that maybe I could share all the money I stole with him, though I doubted that he would accept it. I saw him as my father, a caring father… But he called me an abomination, and I remember his first words to me all too well. He cursed my very existence, and he saw me as nothing but a freak of nature that did not deserve to look and sound like him. And so, I tried to kill him, even as he tried to apologize, as he tried to get me to join his clan. 

    The only one that truly cared about me that night was Elisa Maza. She talked some sense into Goliath, even held him back as he charged toward me ready to pound his fists into my skull, and she was the only one who treated me like a person instead of an experiment. I now know that I did not deserve her compassion, for I tried to kill her also, if only to make Goliath suffer even more. 

    I now wish that I had forgotten about my desire for vengeance and the twenty million dollars and that I had just accepted Goliath's offer to join his clan. But I did not; I refused to forgive him, but can I forgive myself? 

    A sigh escapes me, and I despise myself. Since when have I been so pitiful? I used to be powerful in both strength and wealth and a force to be reckoned with only rivaled by my original, Goliath himself. But who am I now? It pains me greatly to say this, but I am nothing but a quivering, whimpering, pathetic reflection of what I used to be. I am trapped with no hope of escaping, used, tormented, and alone. 

    As the nights pass, as my spirit slowly succumbs to my pain, and as my will slowly disintegrates, I dare to wonder if Goliath has been right all along, and I have been nothing but a fool who was just trying to prove himself to everyone around him. More tears surface, and I admit that he was right. Oh, if he could just hear my thoughts and come to my rescue. Please, Father, save me from this torment, and please forgive me for the things I have done. 

    Forgive me for trying to kill you on several occasions, for trying to kill your daughter, for trying to kill what appears to be your beloved, forgive me for thinking that I was so much better than you and that you embarrassed me with your existence. I now realize that I do not deserve to look like you. You are strong, honorable, loyal, and I am nothing. My tears have poured down on my soul as rain, and the burning fire that used to be my spirit is slowly being defeated by the raging storm inside me that is my pain. 

    I beg you, Goliath, please come for me; I cannot survive much longer. I want to be a part of your clan. I want to be your son, or perhaps your twin brother, whichever you prefer. Just please save me from… her… 

    Just thinking about her makes my heart race uncontrollably and makes me feel faint. She hates me, she truly does hate me, and I fear her as I once feared death. I can't bear to think about the things that she's put me through for as long as I have been here. She has tortured every fiber of my being, and she has more in store for me, much more. She has made me scream in agonizing pain more times than I can remember. Through the echoes of my sorrow and excruciating pain, I hear her maniacal laughter. 

    That laughter… How she enjoys watching me writhe, though I know I deserve it for what I did to her. I tricked her into loving me. She was mine to command, mine to ravage whenever I felt like it, mine to mock, and she would not even consider rising against me, not even after I tried to kill her in order to attain her fortune. I also wanted to make her suffer, for I knew that she only loved me because I looked like who used to be her mate. 

    How I hated her for that. 

    That night at the amusement park, I was going to break up with her in the most humiliating of ways. I would leave her for a clone of herself and Elisa, and then I would try to kill her precious daughter, and the rest of what used to be her clan. Yes, the plan was perfect, but what went wrong? She chose to save her daughter even as she told her that she hated her own mother, she freed the clan, there was a struggle between original and clone, and then… 

    There was fire. 

    We fought, but her strength and skill were too much for me, as I am not as skilled in battle as my original, much to my misfortune. I am young and inexperienced, and that caused my defeat and my current predicament. She overpowered me, but I still showed no fear; I was almost daring her with my eyes to do whatever she had in store for me. We were lost to the flames and to the wreckage of what used to be a roller coaster. I remember thinking that I would be lost in oblivion, in death, before my body appeared to be consumed by flames and the overwhelming peacefulness of unconsciousness submerged me in darkness. 

    Then there was rain. 

    I remember opening my eyes and finding myself amidst the dying flames, seriously wounded, and barely aware of what was going on around me. The rain was pouring from the sky and onto my scalded body, and I was dimly aware that my armor was completely wrecked and that shards of metal were stabbing my skin. I suddenly saw a winged silhouette coming for me. I remember trying to crawl away from her, but my wounds and burns were much too serious. I was utterly helpless as I saw her glowing eyes coming closer and closer to my quivering form… 

    More tears come to my eyes and I shakily wipe them away. I cannot help but gaze at my arm though I try not to; the sight is almost too much for me. I have lost so much muscle due to starvation and dehydration, and I can see all the broken bones beneath my skin that have healed incorrectly during the day, and all the scars that trail the length of my arm and the rest of my body. I try to make a fist, but I cannot even do that for all my muscles and bones appear to crack and stiffen. 

    I force myself to think about the past before losing myself to my tears, for I know that my body will never be the same, and that I may not walk or even glide again. I may have to spend the rest of my life crippled and broken, that is, if I can ever see the moonlight again outside these walls, and if I even survive. 

    A sob escapes me and tears stream down my cheeks, but I force myself to think about something else, about the past, about how I ended up here. After the fire and beneath the rain, she took me to Nightstone Unlimited to be experimented on by her scientists and tortured in mind, body and soul by herself. How ironic that the company we built together would spell my demise and my ultimate destruction. 

    She tortured me so vehemently that first night… She broke every bone in my body, damaged every internal organ, and had me coughing up blood for the rest of the night. She only laughed cruelly as she saw tears of blood stream down my cheeks and watched as I desperately tried to crawl away from her though every bone in my body was fractured nearly beyond repair. 

    I remember, very clearly, since such a horrible memory is nearly impossible to eradicate from my troubled mind, that she had me pinned down on the floor as I struggled not to cry in front of my tormentor. She was mocking me with such cruel words, and I struggled not to listen. I felt her grabbing my wing, and my heart dropped to my stomach. 

    She would not dare… 

    She laughed cruelly for the thousandth time that night as she began to tear it off my back. I felt pain the likes of which I had never experienced, and fear that I cannot begin to describe. She was going to take my wings… 

    I remember trying to escape her grasp, but my efforts proved to be futile. I could feel my muscles, bones, nerves, and veins in my wing slowly snapping in two. I pleaded, begged her not to take my wings as I wept pitifully, but she would not listen. She was only stopped by the sun that was starting to rise, and she then released me, leaving me lying in a pool of my own blood and tears. I thought that death would come once I turned to stone, and I could not imagine something worse happening. I could not have been more wrong. My punishment was not death, though I wish it were. My punishment was to live at her mercy, to live in fear, in pain, in suffering, in shame, in near-death. 

    She then left me, promising to return later to finish what she started. As soon as I was alone in my cell, I curled up and wrapped my good wing around myself, as the other was just barely holding onto my body, and I wept, blaming myself for my failure, and trying to understand what went wrong. The sun seemed to take forever to rise as I lay there, weeping like a child in both hopelessness and indescribable, agonizing pain. 

    This carried on for several months. She would come to torture me, and would leave me, barely holding on to life, and turning to stone would barely fix my broken bones and internal organs, only to start the torture anew the next night. But with each passing day, I grew increasingly weaker due to lack of sunlight. Now I wish that I could roost beneath the sun's rays at least once more, and that I could once again glide beneath the stars. Oh, such simple pleasures of life that I did not care for until they were taken from me… 

    Many times, I tried to escape her vengeful claws, but each attempt would only anger her more and the torture and torment would worsen with each passing night. I became numb to pain, even as she slaughtered my body every night. My will to escape and my desire for vengeance were lost to my agony, and instead of wishing for life, I wished for death. I refused to eat whatever trash her scientists fed me, I refused to drink, and I refused to do anything but lie there pitifully. I wanted to die, and if I had to do so in life since my soul would not be allowed to flee from my body, then so be it. 

    Every night, I wondered what would have happened if only I had fought harder and if only I had not let her take me to this place. But I refused to believe that I was to blame, that I wrought this upon myself. But now I realize that I have no one to blame but myself. I should not have been playing with fire only to gain more wealth. I should not have betrayed her that way. She has been betrayed enough times in her life, but I refused to see that. Now I do. 

    And the truth that is tearing at my soul, and yet rejuvenating it and strengthening it with hope, is this: I was a monster, a selfish, heartless, soulless beast, and a fool. 

    I am startled out of my thoughts about the past, present and uncertain future when I suddenly hear someone come in, but I refuse to look. I know that she has come to try to torture me into speaking or screaming again, into reacting to my pain and to my surroundings. She will threaten to take my wings, or to rip off some other limb, but I am numb to pain. Time has taken care of that. Let her go into a rampage, but I will no longer give her the satisfaction of pleading and screaming. 

    I see her out of the corner of my eye as she comes to my cell and makes her way in. She nudges me with her tail, but I do not react as I just stare blankly into space. She then kicks me in the stomach with savage force, sending me crashing into a wall, but I do not react, for I feel nothing. I hear her snarl in frustration before a devious smile crosses her lips. She brings a hand to my face and lifts it so that my eyes meet hers, and fear overwhelms me, so much that I feel like losing what little I may have in my stomach. 

    She terrifies me… 

    "How the mighty have fallen," she says, smiling cruelly. 

    How I fear her to the core of my being, and yet, how I loathe her with all my strength. This torture that will not cease is not justice, no; this is pure pleasure and pure ecstasy for her. Oh, such a cruel, miserable existence for someone who is attempting to live in light and love instead of pain and deceit. 

    I brace myself when I notice the bloodthirsty look in her eyes. I squeeze my eyes shut and refuse to look at the blood flying in all directions and splashing against the walls when her claws come in contact with my chest. Tears come to my eyes as the torture begins anew, and I whisper so softly that I see no signs of her hearing my weakness. 

    _Please, no…_

    But this time, instead of just lying there receiving the torture I wrought upon myself, I begin to devise a way to escape. Little does she know that though my body is numb, and my spirit and pride have been seriously scarred by the wounds inflicted upon me over the months of torture, my mind is still as sharp as ever. I cannot help but smile briefly through pain beyond imagining because for the first time in months, I dare to hope. 

**The End?**


End file.
